There are a number of prior art electronic devices that use controlled lighting to display images. U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,363, issued to Marnell, II et al. (hereinafter Marnell), discloses an electronic game apparatus for playing poker. The Marnell apparatus has a display assembly that includes a plurality of visually perceptible card representations, lights that are placed near the card representations, a controller that is connected to the light source, and an input device connected to the controller. The controller has a random sequence generator to momentarily actuate the lights in a random sequence to randomly display the card representations. When a user utilizes the input device to interrupt the random sequence and select a card representation, the controller responds by actuating lights near the selected card representation to illuminate it. The display assembly of the Marnell apparatus is stationary. Furthermore, the lights of the Marnell apparatus are used to illuminate, and not to project, the card representations.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,287,830, issued to Fleury et al. (hereinafter Fleury), discloses a portable visual and aural communication device. The Fleury communication device comprises a cabinet with a glass screen mounted on its top panel for viewing visual images, and a control mechanism for operation the device. The control mechanism is preferably a manual crank. A user turns the crank to select a word phrase that is stored on a pre-recorded film strip that is mounted on spools and contains many word phrases in many languages. The selected phrase is projected onto the screen by a projection system energized by turning on a switch. The projection system includes a light source to project the stationary film segment that contains the selected word phrase and a lens system to direct the projected film segment onto the glass screen for viewing. The control mechanism in the Fleury communication device moves the film at a generally slow speed. Furthermore, once the switch is turned on, the light source provides continuous lighting until the switch is turned off.